Destroy All Humans!

The year is 1947. Two aliens, known as Furons, come to Earth to rescue their captured comrade… or so it seems. You assume the role of Cryptosporidium-137 (Crypto for short) as you fight anyone from common farmhands to the Majestic, a variation on the classic Men in Black. With the help of Orthopox-13 (Pox for short) it is your job to help harvest the brain stems of humans to help purify the Furon DNA which has been slowly eroded due to centuries of cloning. Help Crypto gather the brain stems his race needs, infused with Furon DNA eons ago, and knock some monkey heads in the process.

Destroy All Humans! is a game very reminiscent of the Grand Theft Auto line of games. With a free-roam gameplay style and a mission driven plot line, it could be considered GTA without the actual grand theft auto.

The storyline of Destroy All Humans! is simple, yet amusing. In a nutshell, it’s basically a bunch of missions that lead you to information about either the location of important people, things, or organizations or just lead you to the mindless destruction of buildings, towns, cities or military organizations. All the while, Crypto is either making some smart remark, mocking Pox, or just itching to blow something up and/or kill more humans. The storyline of the game also draws heavily off of popular culture of the time, mostly from Sci-Fi movies of the era. The best part of the storyline is its comic nature.

The gameplay in Destroy All Humans! is nothing too new. Again, sticking with similarities to the GTA series, that’s basically how this game plays out, only with a smartass alien in it. You roam through a city, performing missions which further the storyline and occasionally unlock a new location. In true GTA fashion, you can play side missions that have little to do with the main storyline, but are a good way to get more brain stems which not only help unlock new levels, but also can be used to upgrade both Crypto’s abilities and the various abilities of his flying saucer.

In my opinion, the audio of Destroy All Humans! is, by far, one of the strongest features in this game. Crypto sounds convincingly real, with a certain resemblance to Jack Nicholson in the way he talks. The voice of Pox should be a voice everyone recognizes. From Irken invader to Furon invader, Pox is voiced by Richard Steven Horvitz, the same voice actor who played ZIM on the Nick cartoon Invader ZIM. ZIM is by far one of my favorite cartoon aliens and to hear his voice in a video game like this just adds to the game’s appeal. Now, along with the superb voice acting in this game, the sound is genuine as well. It has the standard beeping and buzzing noises associated with spaceships, along with the realistic explosions and the car horns that make you think “okay, who’s out in my car?” All in all, the audio quality in this game is above average for a PS2 game. It almost makes you feel like you actually are that little alien dude bent on world domination.

Visually, Destroy All Humans! is nothing out of the ordinary. Everything seems to be a mix of realistic design with a cartoon-like effect, but only slightly. For the most part the game seems very realistic, again similar to the GTA series of games. Destroy All Humans! is what San Andreas would be like if Carl Johnson was a 4 foot tall alien with an anal probe.

Overall, Destroy All Humans! is a game that’s hard to stop playing until you’ve beaten it. Chock-full of sarcasm and smartass remarks, Destroy All Humans! is a fun for anyone who likes games that are both funny and that let you mindlessly destroy everything within a 10-mile radius. It’s very cliché at times, but overall it has a solid plot. Destroy All Humans! is probably one of the most fun games I’ve played in a while, if only because of Crypto and his ever-sarcastic wit.